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Hundreds of people sailed through my life during three decades at The Washington Post, but none matched the impact that Bob Andrews had on me.

Bob died December 2, from Parkinson’s, silencing a man whom hundreds of others — from the jungles of Southeast Asia to the mountains of Afghanistan — could not. He was 85.

From the moment he ambled up behind me two short years ago outside my gym in Washington’s west end, I sensed a force field around him. Here was a real spy, a highly decorated soldier who fought in wildernesses, jumped out of airplanes, wrote novels and military textbooks, sealed business deals, knew presidents and sheiks, advised former astronauts and rained horror down on bad guys.

Bob published three spy novels, including one published in 1993 titled “Death in a Promised Land.” That was followed by three mysteries built around a pair of Washington, D.C. homicide detectives. Film director Spike Lee has agreed to buy the movie rights to “Death in a Promised Land.” It is a modern-day exploration of unanswered questions surrounding the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Bob Andrews was highly decorated in the service of his country, including the bronze star and the medal for Distinguished Civilian Service to the United States Army.

Bob also authored a thesis about his counter-insurgency work in Vietnam, which was published as “The Village War” and is a text used at the National War College in Washington.

“My dad led a big life,” said his daughter, Elizabeth, in an understatement. Bob was a character right from a Daniel Silva thriller.

Never in our conversations did Bob mention his numerous decorations. Maybe because it would have taken too long. He earned the bronze star, the air medal, the army meritorious service medal, the company infantry badge, the master parachutist badge and the special forces tab. The Republic of Vietnam awarded him the gallantry cross first class. He was awarded the Department of Defense Award for Outstanding Public Service in 2007 and the medal for Distinguished Civilian Service to the United States Army.

My reporting instincts flashed “Man of consequence … Accept!” when this total stranger offered me a ride in the souped-up Mini Cooper convertible I was admiring outside our gym. “Get in. Let’s go for a ride. You wanna drive?”

I accepted. And off we went.

I learned he once inhabited the hazy netherworld between the polished Washington noggins who formulated policy and the on-the-ground specialists who erase our enemies.

“The breadth of his national security experience was rare,” said Pete Geren, who was Bob’s boss when Geren served as secretary of the army under President George W. Bush and during the early months of the Obama administration. “Few people had experience in intel and on the ground in the field and in counterinsurgency. He knew that side of war.”

Bob was trained as an engineer, graduating from the University of Florida and subsequently joining the army as a second lieutenant. He dove into covert operations during his first tour of Vietnam as part of a unit that conducted long-range reconnaissance missions along the borders of Laos and Cambodia and other unconventional operations in Southeast Asia.

Director Spike Lee has agreed to buy the rights to ‘Death in a Promised Land,’ a modern-day exploration of questions surrounding the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
(Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images for Kering)

His second tour was as a Green Beret. Before he left the army after 20 years, he had a master’s degree in Asian Studies from Northeast Missouri State University, since renamed Truman State University, and had served the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg.

After he did his 20, he went to the CIA where he spent time in Southeast Asian Ops before moving over to legislative affairs. The CIA gave way to many years as Ohio Democrat Sen. John Glenn’s military adviser.

He was summoned back to duty on 9/11, when Bush appointed him principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations.

Bob served in a variety of Pentagon roles, including counterintelligence, special operations and special assistant to Geren. His Vietnam experience had taught him the limits of technology over tribal loyalty as he directed the 5th Special Forces Group into Afghanistan.

Bob Andrews traveled all over the world for his country both fighting America’s enemies and advising our leaders.

He had been raised in a civilized society that breathed order, yet readily adapted to disorder when the job required.

“He could talk about high-level stuff with Harvard PhDs,” said Shephard Hill, a longtime friend and colleague. “He was also the only guy at the table with policy wonks who had held a gun, jumped out of an airplane, shot people and crawled through the jungle. He could bring those details to the discussions from a soldier’s level because he had lived it.”

Bob was tough. He ran multiple marathons. He was training for one in 1978 when he was hit by a truck at Hains Point in D.C., shattering his pelvis and damaging his back. But he ran several more marathons after he recovered.

He didn’t blink an eye when one August Friday he ordered the shutdown of a critical missile parts factory for noncompliance with security regulations, startling Pentagon brass and corporate bigwigs, Geren said. The problem was fixed by the following Monday.

“Bob had read news reports of mold in the barracks at Fort Sill, Okla.,” Geren said. “Bob said ‘Let’s get a plane and get out there. The soldiers and their families need to meet face-to-face with the secretary of the army.’”

Geren said Bob taught him important management lessons.

“Bob had read news reports of mold in the barracks at Fort Sill, Okla.,” Geren said. “Bob said ‘Let’s get a plane and get out there. The soldiers and their families need to meet face-to-face with the secretary of the army.’”

Instead of going through the chain of command and following the normal procedure of ordering an investigation from the top down, Bob advised Geren that when it comes to soldiers’ health and welfare, you start at the bottom where the soldiers live.

“I called my chief of staff, requested a plane, and we flew to Sill the next morning,” Geren said. “We met with the soldiers who lived in the barracks, the commanding officer, viewed the mold firsthand, committed to fix the problem and we did.”

Bob was an extrovert. “He loved talking to people,” Elizabeth said. “He made friends with everyone from the bartender at Martin’s Tavern to the homeless guy who lives in Solomon’s Alley. He thought everyone had a story and he loved to hear them.”

Bob was a patriot. “As a kid, I rode in the back of a station wagon where dad was always leading us in songs like ‘God Bless America’ and ‘This Land Is Your Land,’” said daughter Elizabeth.

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Bob was humble. “He would sit and listen in meetings,” Geren said. “Offer an occasional comment. But when it was over, he would go to his boss and tell him this is what we should do.”

One of our last lunches was at Martin’s Tavern on Aug. 6, 2021. The meeting was preceded a few weeks earlier by a gloomy message regarding the advancing Parkinson’s disease: “PD has (finally) been asserting itself,” his email said.

“He could talk about high-level stuff with Harvard PhDs,” said Shephard Hill, a longtime friend and colleague. “He was also the only guy at the table with policy wonks who had held a gun, jumped out of an airplane, shot people and crawled through the jungle. He could bring those details to the discussions from a soldier’s level because he had lived it.”

Bob was understandably distracted that summer day. I noticed a vulnerability for the first time since we had met. I felt terribly sad, but I also was proud to be in the company of such an accomplished person at a most sensitive time in his life. We continued to communicate over the next few months, but the interactions were less frequent.

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“Parkinson’s gaining a bit, but not without a fight,” he wrote. “New doctor joining my merry band tomorrow. Feeble though they be, you’re in my prayers. Best, Bob”

Our final email exchange occurred on Nov. 5, 2021, when I asked Bob how he was feeling and told him he was in my prayers. Following is his reply: “S.A.S., Tom. (Still.Above.Sod.) Stolen from F.B. Morse. The respite increasingly less enjoyable, but always brightened by incoming traffic. Thanks, Bob.”

No, thank you, Bob.

Thomas Heath was a reporter at The Washington Post for more than three decades across several beats.

What we know — and still don't know — about what led to Tyre Nichols' death

January 28, 2023 Published by CNN

CNN
—

It’s been almost three weeks since a traffic stop in Memphis led to a violent arrest and, three days later, the death of the 29-year-old Black driver.

Tyre Nichols was hospitalized after he was pulled over on January 7, police have said. Five Memphis Police Department officers, who also are Black, were fired after an internal investigation and are facing criminal charges, including second-degree murder.

Key questions remain unanswered as the nation – already alert to how police sometimes treat people of color, especially following the mass protests of 2020 – waits for police to release footage of the incident.

Here’s what we know:

On January 7, around 8:30 p.m., Memphis officers pulled over a vehicle for suspected reckless driving, according to a statement from Memphis police.

“A confrontation occurred” between officers and the vehicle’s driver – later identified as Nichols – who then fled on foot, according to Memphis police. Officers apprehended him and “another confrontation occurred,” resulting in Nichols’ arrest, police said.

The incident happened a few blocks away from his home, Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis told CNN’s Don Lemon on Friday.

“We’ve looked at cameras, we’ve looked at body-worn cameras, even if something occurred prior to this stop, we’ve been unable to substantiate that at this time,” Davis said.

“We’ve taken a pretty extensive look to determine what the probable cause was and we have not been able to substantiate that,” she said. “It doesn’t mean that something didn’t happen, but there is no proof.”

Also unclear are who was involved in the initial police encounter, how far Nichols fled on foot, how officers apprehended him, how long these “confrontations” lasted, or why officers felt compelled to confront Nichols twice.

Beyond police body camera footage, police looked at surveillance cameras around the city at businesses – anything that could help paint a picture about what happened prior to the traffic stop, Davis said.

After the officers stop Nichols’ car, there is a physical interaction involving Nichols as the officers are trying to get him out the car, but it’s still unknown what the original reason was for the stop, the chief said.

From the beginning of the encounter, the chief said, the officers involved were riled up. “The escalation was already at a high level,” Davis said.

The nature of the traffic stop was very aggressive with loud communication, and it escalated from there, she said.

During the initial altercation involving several officers, pepper spray was deployed, and Nichols ran, Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy said at a Thursday news conference.

Nichols got away, but the officers “found him again at another location and at that point there was an amount of aggression that is unexplainable,” he said.

“There was another altercation at a nearby location at which the serious injuries were experienced by Mr. Nichols,” Mulroy continued. “After some period of time of waiting around afterward, he was taken away by an ambulance.”

“I heard him call out for his mother, for his mom,” Davis said, referring to the video. “Just the disregard for humanity … That’s what really pulls at your heartstrings and makes you wonder: Why was a sense of care and concern for this individual just absent from the situation by all who went to the scene?”

There then was an “elapsed period of time” before getting medical help for Nichols after he was injured during the traffic stop by Memphis police officers, Mulroy said.

“After some period of time of waiting around afterward, he was taken away by an ambulance,” he said.

On January 10, three days after the stop, Nichols died due to injuries sustained in the “use-of-force incident with officers,” according to a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation statement.

Nichols suffered “extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating,” according to preliminary results of an autopsy commissioned by attorneys for his family.

“We can state that preliminary findings indicate Tyre suffered extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating, and that his observed injuries are consistent with what the family and attorneys witnessed on the video of his fatal encounter with police on January 7, 2023,” attorney Benjamin Crump said in a statement.

CNN has asked Crump for a copy of the autopsy commissioned by the family, but he said the full report is not yet ready. Officials have also not released Nichols’ autopsy.

After its internal investigation, Memphis police identified and fired five officers involved in the traffic stop due to their violation of multiple department policies.

Officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills, Jr. and Justin Smith were terminated for failing in their “excessive use of force, duty to intervene, and duty to render aid,” the department said in a statement.

Martin III, Smith, Bean, Haley and Mills, Jr. have each been charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, two charges of aggravated kidnapping, two charges of official misconduct and one charge of official oppression, according to both Shelby County criminal court and Shelby County jail records.

The Memphis Police Association, the union representing the officers, declined to comment on the terminations beyond saying that the city of Memphis and Nichols’ family “deserve to know the complete account of the events leading up to his death and what may have contributed to it,” according to a statement.

All five officers have been released on bond.

In a joint news conference Thursday afternoon, Blake Ballin, an attorney for Mills, and William Massey, Martin’s attorney, said they have not yet watched the video of the police encounter.

“No one out there that night intended for Tyre Nichols to die,” Massey said.

Ballin described Mills as a “respectful father,” who was “devastated” to be accused in the killing.

Other officers’ attorneys did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Davis “expected serious charges, I really did,” the chief said. “Actually the charges that were placed, at least the administrative charges, were probably the most severe that I’ve seen in my career, but they were absolutely appropriate,” Davis said.

It’s still unclear what role each officer played in the incident.

There is no evidence now that the officers involved had acted this way in the past, Davis said, adding police are “taking a deeper dive into previous arrests, previous video camera footage.”

Pictured are top, from left, former officers Justin Smith, Emmitt Martin III and Desmond Mills, Jr. and, bottom, from left, Demetrius Haley and Tadarrius Bean.

It’s unclear to what extent those employees were taking care of Nichols and what type of aid was rendered, if any at all.

Davis said her assessment is that the EMTs “failed to render proper care.”

“They began to render care and concern but it was long after several minutes, which was concerning for all of us that we see a number of failures where individuals did not exercise the amount of care that we are responsible for.”

“During a period of time before the EMS services arrived on scene, Fire is on scene. And they are there with Tyre and the police officers prior to EMS arriving,” Nichols’ family attorney Antonio Romanucci told CNN, adding there were “limitations” on how much he could say.

While she has met the officers, the chief said she didn’t know them personally. From her impressions of them, she said they seemed like other officers, and were respectful when they saw her, but what she saw in the video was more of a “groupthink mentality” where no one took a step to intervene.

Two Memphis Fire Department employees who were part of Nichols’ “initial patient care” have been “relieved of duty,” pending the outcome of an internal investigation, department Public Information Officer Qwanesha Ward told CNN’s Nadia Romero.

Officers with the Memphis Police Department went to the home of RowVaughn Wells, Nichols’ mother, between 8 and 9 p.m. on January 7 to tell her about Nichols’ arrest, his mother told Lemon Friday.

Officers told Wells her son was arrested for a DUI, pepper sprayed and tased. Because of that, they said he was going to the hospital and would later be taken to booking at the police station, she said.

“They then asked me was he on any type of drugs or anything of that nature because they were saying it was so difficult to put the handcuffs on him and he had this amount of energy, superhuman energy,” she said. “What they were describing was not my son so I was very confused.”

Officers said she couldn’t go to the hospital, Wells said, and when asked where her son was, they said he was “nearby” but wouldn’t tell her exactly where.

“Now that I’m actually putting things together, I believe they were trying to cover it up when they first came to my door,” she said.

Around 4 a.m. ET, Wells said a doctor called to summon her to the hospital to see her son.

“The doctor proceeded to tell me that my son had went into cardiac arrest and that his kidneys were failing,” she said. “This doesn’t sound consistent to somebody being tased or pepper sprayed,” as the police had told her.

“When my husband and I got to the hospital and I saw my son, he was already gone,” Wells said. “They had beat him to a pulp.”

Wells described the horrific injuries her son had when she saw him in the hospital.

“He had bruises all over him. His head was swollen like a watermelon. His neck was busting because of the swelling. They broke his neck. My son’s nose look like a S,” she said. “They actually just beat the crap out of him. And so when I saw that, I knew my son was gone, the end. Even if he did live, he would have been a vegetable.”

Nichols was the baby of his family, the youngest of four children and he loved being a father to his son, his family said.

He was a “good boy” who spent his Sundays doing laundry and getting ready for the week, his mother, RowVaughn Wells, said.

“Does that sound like somebody that the police said did all these bad things?” Wells said. “Nobody’s perfect OK, but he was damn near.”

Nichols moved to Memphis before the Covid-19 pandemic and got stuck there when things shut down, his mother said.

When he wasn’t working the second shift at FedEx, Nichols enjoyed photography and skateboarding, something he had been doing since he was 6.

Nichols had Crohn’s disease, a digestive issue, and was a slim 140 to 145 pounds despite his 6-foot-3-inch height, his mother said.

On January 18, the Department of Justice said a civil rights investigation was opened into Nichols’ death.

Acknowledging the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s ongoing efforts, the US Attorney’s office “in coordination with the FBI Memphis Field Office and the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, has opened a civil rights investigation,” US Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, Kevin G. Ritz said, declining to provide further details.

The Memphis police chief condemned the actions of officers involved.

“I was outraged, it was incomprehensible to me, it was unconscionable,” Davis said. “I felt that I needed to do something and do something quickly. I don’t think I’ve witnessed anything of that nature in my career.”

Davis said the video showing the beating of Tyre Nichols is as bad, if not worse, than the 1991 video showing the Los Angeles Police beating of Rodney King, a motorist whose savage encounter with police sparked outrage after footage was released.

“I was in law enforcement during the Rodney King incident and it’s very much aligned with that same type of behavior,” she said. “I would say it’s about the same, if not worse.”

“You’re going to see acts that defy humanity, you’re going to see a disregard for life, duty of care that we’re all sworn to, and a level of physical interaction that’s above and beyond what is required in law enforcement,” she said of the footage.

“I’m sure, as I said before, individuals watching will feel what the family felt and if you don’t, you’re not a human being.”

CNN has obtained portions of the police scanner audio leading up to Nichols’ arrest. Portions of the audio are inaudible, but you can hear a brief part of the conversation between an officer and the dispatcher.

An officer can be heard saying, “We got one Black male running,” and giving instructions to “run that car registration tag and see what’s the address,” followed by what sounds like Nichols in distress.

It’s not clear where this audio fits in the sequence of the incident or which officer is speaking.

Family attorneys did watch the video on Monday and described it as “heinous.” Nichols was tased, pepper-sprayed and restrained, Crump said, and he, too, compared it to the LAPD beating of Rodney King.

Crump described the video as “appalling,” “deplorable” and “heinous.” He said Wells, Nichols’ mother, was unable to get through viewing the first minute of the footage after hearing Nichols ask, “What did I do?” At the end of the footage, Nichols can be heard calling for his mother three times, the attorney said.

Nichols fled from the police, according to Rodney Wells, his stepfather, because he was afraid.

“Our son ran because he was scared for his life,” Rodney Wells said Monday. “He did not run because he was trying to get rid of no drugs, no guns, no any of that. He ran because he was scared for his life. And when you see the video, you will see why he was scared for his life.”

Rodney Wells didn’t want his wife to see the video, but attorneys asked that she try to watch as much of it as possible.

“She heard one word and had to leave out of the room,” Rodney Wells said. “And that was when they initially pulled him out of the car. He said, ‘What did I do?’”

In Rodney Wells’ own words, this is what is on the video:

“He said, ‘What did I do? Why are y’all doing this to me? What did I do?’ and they proceeded to snatch him out of the car and was trying to wrestle him to the ground. And he got scared. So he was athletic enough to get out of their situation and run, and he was trying to run home, because he was three blocks from the house when they stopped him,” Wells continued.

“And when I saw the police officer, you know, they have this little, like, stick, this metal thing that they pull out … I saw them pull that out and started beating my son with it. And I saw officers hitting on him, I saw officers kicking him. One officer kicked him like he was kicking a football, a couple of times,” Wells told Lemon.

“But the most telling thing about the video to me was the fact that it was maybe ten officers on the scene and nobody tried to stop it or even after they beat him and they propped him up against the car, no one rendered aid to him whatsoever. They walked around, smoking cigarettes like it was all calm and like, you know, bragging about what happened,” the stepfather said.

“He was sitting there, and then he slumped over. And an officer walked over to him and said, ‘Sit back up,’ while he’s handcuffed. So, he had to – they prop him back up, and he slumped over again, and they prop him back up again, but no one was rendering aid,” he continued.

“I saw some fire department people come out there and they just walked around and nobody showed him any aid, and they supposed to be trained in first aid. By the time the paramedic truck pulled up, that’s when we couldn’t see anything because the paramedic truck blocked the camera,” Rodney Wells said.

Nichols’ family wants the officers charged with murder, family attorney Romanucci told CNN’s Erin Burnett Wednesday evening.

Video footage of the incident will be released on YouTube in four parts, showing the initial stop, the stop near Nichols’ home and body-worn camera footage of the individuals at the scene, sometime after 7 p.m. ET on Friday, Davis confirmed.

In timing the release, “we thought about schools, we thought about businesses and we felt like Friday afternoon if there were individuals [who] decided they wanted to peacefully protest, at least other individuals would have gone home, schools would be out and it wouldn’t be as disruptive as it would have been if we released it on … on a Wednesday afternoon.”

“A lot of the people’s questions about what exactly happened will, of course, be answered once people see the video,” Mulroy told CNN’s Laura Coates on Tuesday night, noting he believes the city will release enough footage to show the “entirety of the incident, from the very beginning to the very end.”

Correction: A previous version of this story misspelled RowVaughn Wells’ first name.

Hairdressers of color are exposed to dangerous chemical mix

January 28, 2023 Published by Futurity (National Geo)

Black and Hispanic hairdressers are exposed to a complex mixture of chemicals, many of them unknown, potentially hazardous, and undisclosed on product labels, researchers report.

The new study is the first to apply an advanced screening technique used to identify chemicals in food and wastewater to assess chemical exposures in hairdressers.

The results, published in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology, suggest more research is needed to better understand the risks for hairdressers, particularly those of color, and how best to mitigate them.

“We know women are more highly exposed to chemicals in personal care products and we also know women of color have elevated exposures compared to women of other demographics,” says coauthor and principal investigator Lesliam Quirós-Alcalá, an assistant professor of environmental health and engineering at Johns Hopkins University who studies chemical exposures’ health effects in underrepresented populations.

“We wondered, what about women who are doing this as a profession. How much more are they being exposed. There really wasn’t anything out there when we started this.”

Researchers tested urine samples from Black and Hispanic hairdressers in the United States and compared them to samples from women of color working in office jobs. Hairdressers of color are suspected to have more chemical exposures than stylists of other demographics because of the products used and services provided in salons serving primarily populations of color.

Unlike traditional studies, the team didn’t only measure for chemicals expected to be found in people working with hair products, they looked for other compounds that had not been previously investigated.

“The conventional methods just look for chemicals we might expect to be present, but these products contain a lot of different chemicals and not all of them are known,” says senior author Carsten Prasse, an assistant professor of environmental health and engineering who studies public and environmental health impacts of chemicals in the environment.

“We wanted to open up the lens and find potential other chemicals that hairdressers might be exposed to so that we could inform future regulations of these chemicals.”

Using the same technique, the Prasse Lab recently found vaping aerosols contain thousands of unknown chemicals and substances not disclosed by manufacturers.

Compared to the women working in offices, hairstylists had higher levels of chemicals in their bodies associated with salon treatments—hair relaxers, conditioners, dyes, and fragrances—but also many more substances the researchers couldn’t identify.

“There are more chemical exposures in this occupation group than we expect,” says lead author Matthew N. Newmeyer, a postdoctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

“It’s definitely concerning. A lot of these chemicals we don’t even know what health risks they may pose,” says Quirós-Alcalá

There are more than 700,000 hairdressers in the United States, more than 90% of whom are estimated to be female, and 30% are Black or Hispanic/Latina. In this predominantly female workforce, with many women of reproductive age, exposures may not only pose a women’s health issue, but also a children’s health issue as exposures during the preconception and prenatal period could increase children’s health risks, Quirós-Alcalá says. About half the hairdressers in this study reported working in the salon while pregnant.

The findings show more studies are critical to better understand what hairdressers are exposed to on the job, and to determine how best to mitigate these risks and to try to reduce any health disparities, Prasse says.

“It’s clearly an under researched area,” he says, “and there is a racial dimension to it which must not be forgotten.”

Additional coauthors are from the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins.

The NHLBI Career Development Award, NIEHS Training grant, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health funded the work.

Source: Johns Hopkins University

Kansas City Royals make official deal with veteran reliever Chapman

BRYCE YOUNG THROWS 5 TOUCHDOWNS AS NO. 5 ALABAMA BLOWS OUT NO. 11 KANSAS STATE IN SUGAR BOWL

The Royals signed veteran reliever Aroldis Chapman to a $3.75 million, one-year contract Friday, a week after agreeing to terms with the seven-time All-Star, who is coming off a lackluster season with the New York Yankees.

Chapman was once known for consistently throwing 100 mph fastballs past woebegone hitters. But the left-hander, who will be 35 on opening day, was 4-4 with a 4.46 ERA in his final season with the Yankees, who ultimately left him off their AL Division Series roster when his actions raised questions about his dedication to the team.

The Kansas City Royals made a deal with veteran reliever Aroldis Chapman, who is coming off his worst season in his 13-year MLB career.

Chapman had spent time on the injured list with Achilles tendinitis in May, then lost the closer job to Clay Holmes. He was on the IL again in August for a leg infection following a tattoo, then missed a mandatory team workout for the playoffs.

The Royals are gambling that he can help what was one of baseball’s worst bullpens last season. The relievers had a 4.66 ERA, fourth-worst in the majors, and the team had done little to upgrade this offseason until recently trading away injury-prone shortstop Adalberto Mondesi and outfielder Michael A. Taylor for a trio of pitching prospects.

Chapman was an All-Star as recently as two years ago. He is 44-35 with a 2.48 ERA and 315 saves in 13 seasons.

Former Vice President Pence on classified docs found at his home: 'Mistakes were made'

January 28, 2023 Published by CNN

CNN
—

Former Vice President Mike Pence said Friday that he had been previously unaware classified documents were at his Indiana home but that “mistakes were made” and he takes full responsibility.

Pence said during remarks at Florida International University that he had thought “out of an abundance of caution, it would be appropriate to review (his) personal records” kept at his Carmel, Indiana, residence after revelations that classified documents had been found at President Joe Biden’s private office and residence dating to his time as vice president.

CNN first reported that a lawyer for Pence found last week about a dozen documents marked as classified at the former vice president’s home. The former vice president had directed his lawyer, Matt Morgan, who has experience handling classified material, to conduct the search.

The discovery came after Pence had repeatedly said he did not have any classified documents in his possession.

Pence said Friday that they determined there was a “small number of documents marked classified or sensitive interspersed in my personal papers,” and that they “immediately” secured the documents. They then notified the National Archives, turned over the documents to the FBI and communicated the finding to Congress, he said.

“And while I was not aware that those classified documents were in our personal residence, let me be clear: Those classified documents should not have been in my personal residence. Mistakes were made. And I take full responsibility,” he said.

The FBI and the Justice Department’s National Security Division have launched a review of the documents and how they ended up in Pence’s house. It is not yet clear what the documents are related to or their level of sensitivity or classification.

Classified records are supposed to be stored in secure locations. And under the Presidential Records Act, White House records are supposed to go to the National Archives when an administration ends.

Pence said Friday that there was a “thorough review” of all the documents held in the Office of the Vice President and the vice president’s DC residence at the end of the Trump-Pence administration. “And I’m confident that was conducted in a professional manner,” he said.

He also said that he directed his counsel to “fully cooperate” in any investigation and later told reporters: “I welcome the work of the Department of Justice in this case.”

Biden’s team discovered classified documents at his Washington, DC, think tank office in November. Biden has said they immediately notified the National Archives, which then notified the Department of Justice, but the discovery was not made public for weeks. Materials were also found at Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, residence.

The FBI retrieved hundreds of documents from former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence and resort last summer after he failed to comply with a subpoena to hand them over.

A special counsel has been named to both the Biden and Trump cases.

In the wake of the classified document discoveries at Pence, Biden and Trump’s homes, the National Archives formally asked former presidents and vice presidents to re-check their personal records for any classified documents or other presidential records, CNN first reported.

“I think now’s the time when we just ought to rededicate ourselves to greater diligence,” Pence told reporters on Friday, adding that he would “welcome a broader discussion in the Congress, and in the public debate about classified documents.”

This story has been updated with additional details.

Earthquake in southwest China leaves 46 dead | USA TODAY #Shorts

January 28, 2023 Published by GrilloCOM Grab

At least 46 people were reported killed and 16 missing in a 6.8 magnitude earthquake that shook China’s southwestern province …

South Dakota Gov. Noem breaks longstanding tradition, foregoes press conferences

KRISTI NOEM UNDER FIRE FROM STATE FREEDOM CAUCUS FOR ALLEGEDLY OVERSTEPPING SOUTH DAKOTA CONSTITUTIONAL LIMITS

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has yet to make herself available to the Capitol press during the first three weeks of the state’s legislative session, breaking with a decades-old ritual of South Dakota governors holding a weekly news conference to publicly discuss their policy initiatives and take questions from reporters.

The Republican governor, who is a potential 2024 White House contender, has granted numerous TV interviews to national outlets. But in her home state Capitol, where she is proposing a historic tax repeal, new rules for foreign entities purchasing farmland and a batch of bills aimed at aiding new parents, she has not personally taken questions from reporters.

Noem’s retreat from a forum that allows her to face public scrutiny — as well as make a case for her proposals — comes after a campaign season in which candidates nationwide skipped out on debates. The practice deprives the public of a chance to hear politicians respond to questions they may not want to answer. Many officials, such as Noem, have instead made their public case on social media, where they can control their message.

Noem’s spokesman, Ian Fury, declined to say whether she will hold any news conferences this year but said they would be announced in advance. He did not respond to a request for comment on why she has not held any this year.

Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has foregone three weekly press conferences since the start of the state’s current legislative session, breaking longstanding tradition.
(AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack, File)

The governor’s weekly news conferences have been occurring for decades during the state’s 40-day legislative session, said Kevin Woster, a journalist who has covered South Dakota since the late 1970s. And some former governors, such as the bombastic Bill Janklow, seemed to relish the opportunity to spar with the press over the legislative debates of the day, he said.

“The governor and her office are right in the middle of (the legislative session) and should be talking about it,” Woster said, adding, “It’s a denial of something that the public certainly deserves.”

NOEM BLOCKS SOUTH DAKOTA BUSINESS WITH CERTAIN COMPANIES OWNED OR CONTROLLED BY ‘EVIL FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS’

Traditionally, South Dakota’s Democratic and Republican legislative leaders have held half-hour news conferences on the week’s final day when the Legislature is in session. They usually discuss their priorities — and sometimes exchange a few digs at each other — before answering questions from reporters. Then, the governor gets her turn.

While both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have continued the practice this year, Noem has not. She also did not attend a meeting this week with the state’s top newspaper editors — an annual gathering she attended in years past. The editors, who drove hours from around the mostly rural state, did gain audiences with Republican and Democratic legislative leaders.

Michael Card, a retired Republican political strategist and political science professor, said that skipping direct interactions with the press is a missed opportunity for the governor to explain her agenda and creates an information vacuum that leaves room for speculation.

“It is not a good thing for our democracy,” he said.

Suspect in stabbing of Indiana University student has history of 'severe mental illness,' says defense attorney

January 28, 2023 Published by CNN

CNN
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The woman accused of stabbing an Indiana University student “has a long history of severe mental illness” and was “seeking help managing her condition up to and including the day of the alleged attack,” according to her defense attorney.

Billie Davis, who is White, allegedly said she was motivated by race when she repeatedly stabbed the student, who is of Asian descent, on a city bus in Bloomington on January 11th, according to court documents and a student group.

Davis and the victim had been riding separately on the bus, and when the victim tried to exit, Davis got up from her nearby seat and allegedly stabbed the victim in the head with a folding knife, leaving puncture wounds, a probable cause affidavit says.

In a statement emailed to CNN, Kyle Dugger said people close to the suspect describe no racist attitudes or history.

The 56-year-old has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder, aggravated battery, and battery by means of a deadly weapon, according to online court records.

“I would caution the public not to jump to conclusions about a person’s thoughts or beliefs based on police claims from a single interview, and advise even more caution when the interview was taken from a person in custody who may be experiencing psychosis,” Dugger wrote.

In a court filing last week, Dugger said he would seek an insanity defense and prove Davis is “incapable of assisting in the preparation of her defense because of mental illness.” Online court records show the court has asked Davis to undergo mental health evaluations.

Duggar also asked the court to schedule a competency hearing. Two court-appointed psychiatrists will evaluate whether Davis was insane at the time of the alleged incident and if she’s competent to stand trial, Dugger wrote in his emailed statement. The judge will make the final decision about her competency, likely in about three to six months, he said.

The insanity defense will be decided by the jury, Dugger wrote. “When insanity is raised as a defense, the jury can return a verdict of guilty, not guilty, not guilty by reason of insanity, or guilty but mentally ill,” he said.

If an individual is found not guilty due to insanity, prosecutors will move to have the individual committed to the state Division of Mental Health and Addiction, according to Dugger.

“The truth about why bad things happen is rarely simple,” Dugger wrote in his statement. “It is much easier to demonize a person who does something we don’t understand than it is to try to work out the real reasons leading to potential tragedy.”

Why Zoom ‘happy hour’ falls flat

January 28, 2023 Published by Futurity (National Geo)

Alcohol may improve an in-person party, but the same doesn’t hold true for Zoom happy hour, research suggests.

Results from a study published in Clinical Psychological Science suggest combining alcohol and virtual social interaction had negative effects compared to in-person gatherings.

In the study, participants video called either a friend or a stranger seated in a separate room. Researchers gave some participants alcoholic drinks and others nonalcoholic drinks.

As the call took place, researchers tracked participants’ eye movements, or “gaze behavior.”

The study showed that participants who consumed alcohol before conducting the video chat spent more time watching themselves during the conversation instead of their partners. They also felt more negative after the virtual exchange than the people who didn’t drink.

Additionally, the mood-enhancing properties of alcohol seen in in-person interactions weren’t seen in the virtual interactions, says coauthor Michael Sayette, a professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh.

“In a face-to-face conversation, we would expect alcohol to reduce your focus on yourself, which is one of the effects of alcohol that people seem to enjoy,” he says. “Yet in this online study, when your own face is staring back at you from the monitor, it seems that alcohol loses this effect. This may explain why some people don’t find alcohol to enhance socializing in a virtual format.”

Sayette also notes evidence that reducing one’s drinking or participating in Dry January or Sober October could provide longer-lasting health benefits.

“I would say that if you are not missing drinking, then there is no reason to return to it when February begins,” Sayette says. “It may turn out to improve your overall health, especially if you are a heavy drinker.”

Source: Donovan Harrell for University of Pittsburgh

Utah substitute teacher who touts ‘she/any’ pronouns featured on Libs of TikTok

BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY SLAPS DOWN PROFESSOR’S ‘PROGRESSIVE STACKING’ SECTION OF SYLLABUS FOR ‘NON WHITE FOLKS’

A Utah substitute teacher discovered she made the controversial “Libs of TikTok” channel.

The Cedar City, Utah substitute teacher was featured on the @LibsofTikTok Twitter account Monday discussing her gender pronouns with students and displaying a water bottle with an anti-Bible sticker.

The video, posted by Libs of TikTok, whose goal is to expose far-left ideologues in America’s classrooms with reposted content, has reached nearly three million Twitter impressions and one million views

Documents show that a Arizona high school counselor is coaching staff to obtain students’ secret genders, a process that appears to have been kept undercover from parents.
(Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Speaking to Deseret News in an interview, the substitute teacher identified herself as 21-year-old Audrey Wells. In the TikTok, Wells describes her first day as a substitute teacher and said she is the “political unrest that Cedar City needs.”

“There are many things I would like to talk about, but today I would like to talk about how I am the political unrest that Cedar City needs,” Wells said.

She went on to say that she dyed her hair purple last night, have two visible tattoos, and wrote pronouns “She/ Any” on the board for her students to see.

ASTROPHYSICS ‘STEEPED IN SYSTEMIC RACISM AND WHITE SUPREMACY,’ SAYS COLORADO COLLEGE SCIENCE PROFESSOR

One of her 10th-grade students at Cedar High School asked what her pronouns meant. She said that they were “confused” and then told her students that they can’t “misgender” her.

Cedar High School is part of the Iron County School District, which presides over 1,208 students.

Wells told the outlet that she was “surprised” her video caught so much attention after her friends told her what happened. She also said that her comments were an attempt at “humor.”

INTERSECTIONAL CLIMATE SCIENTIST GOES ON RANT AGAINST ‘WHITE MEN,’ COMPARES POLLUTION TO ‘THE FART OF A DOG’

Lake Elmo Library Washington County Photo/Craig Lassig
(Craig Lassig for Washington County Library, MN)

The Iron County School District does not have access to records of substitutes and jobs they completed last year, so they could not confirm that she worked there.

Furthermore, the school district spokesperson verified that Wells is not a current employee and that the school district “does not have a policy about sharing pronouns.”

The issue of education has become a top concern among voters, resulting in organizations like the Oregon Moms Union forming. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, school board meetings have oftentimes become battlegrounds between parents and school board officials.

Parents across the country have protested controversial curricula like Critical Race Theory as well as certain books being in public libraries. This has reignited the debate on how much control parents have over their children’s education.

Joshua Q. Nelson is a reporter for Fox News Digital.

Joshua focuses on politics, education policy ranging from the local to the federal level, and the parental uprising in education.

Joining Fox News Digital in 2019, he previously graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in Political Science and is an alum of the National Journalism Center and the Heritage Foundation’s Young Leaders Program.

Story tips can be sent to [email protected] and Joshua can be followed on Twitter and LinkedIn.